The Breath Before The Burn
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: Loyalty goes deeper than torture and attempts at murder. Hatter's got an unpleasant task ahead of him. Thoughts of Alice carry him through. Missing scene within the series. Hatter, Mad March, and Alice. One shot.


**A/N: A possible missing scene, taking place between the collapse of the casino and Hatter's appearance in the Looking Glass Hall. Nods to his theoretical background with Mad March, lots of musing on Alice and Hatter's state of denial about how much he wants her, and how he managed to get cleaned up before he went for the scene in the Hall.**

Hatter thought that he could make a career out of not thinking about things; but it would hardly pay as well as running a tea shop. Besides which, simply by thinking about not thinking about things, was he not rather defeating the purpose?

He decided not to think about that either.

For instance, he was _not_ thinking about the lack of celebratory hug, now that the Queen of Hearts had been defeated. And he was _not_ thinking of how natural Alice looked, standing with defiant shoulders thrown back, a grin awakening on her face, as though she belonged in Wonderland. And he was _definitely_ not thinking about how she should stay here with him. No.

Contrariwise, there was a time and a place for thinking of such things--- or _not_ thinking them, his subconscious hastens to add, stuck in a rut--- and this was not it. This was the time for deep breaths and deeper thoughts, for memories reflected backwards in the mirror, for---

For burying the dead.

He could have sworn--- he still could, if he chose to--- that March had died long ago. Not that he'd ever seen the body, but he'd heard about it. Through his own grandfather, no less. His grandfather, who had stared mournfully into the inky depths of his tea and muttered, "Poor Dormouse will be most upset. They were very close, you know, always sharing teapots. One outside, one in."

Of course, Grandpa was woolgathering fairly regularly these days; it had ceased to be an occasional habit and become a constant occupation for the old fellow. He would be thinking of his own companions, friends from his youth, rather than their descendants, who had gone to school with Hatter. But the story was the same; some things never changed. Begin at the beginning, go on to the end, and then stop. Round and round and round and round and round we go again; no one ever loses and yet no one ever wins.

Hatter decided not to think about that, either. That way lay madness, and he had a close enough acquaintance with that to know that "mad" was not a direction he wanted to go. There was little point thinking of the past when the present was so--- well--- present. Present in the form of a door that, till recently had led inexplicably to Hatter's subconscious. And now, led---

The only way to answer that was to open it. Hatter stood for a moment, collecting himself. He was not keen on re-entering the room; he'd had some bad times in there. Besides which, the door's very existence itself was something of a mystery. It stood alone and unattended by walls or ceiling or floor; surrounded by the rubble of the Queen's fallen Casino, it baffled the sense and boggled the mind. _Why?_ But Hatter had an inkling. The room beyond the door was intimately connected with the minds of everyone who'd ever been the unwilling subject of Doctors Dee and Dum. As long as they lived, so would the room.

It wasn't doing him any good standing there. Somewhere, Alice was cleaning herself up, wiping away the sweat of battle, perhaps readying herself to say her goodbyes. But here--- here he stood, just Hatter and a seeming innocuous door.

He gritted his teeth, and reached for the handle.

The room was as he'd left it, full of a strange green light, a low burbling as though there was a Jabberwock hidden under the floorboards. The room undoubtedly looked like a symptom of a diseased mind, Hatter thought, till he remembered unpleasantly that the diseased mind was, in all probability, his. _Don't think--- just do_.

The body of Mad March lay prone where he had fallen, pieces of cracked white porcelain littering the floor around what remained of the white rabbit head. Hatter stopped just over it and stood for a moment; leaning down, reaching for the pieces, he cut his finger immediately on the sharp and jagged edge.

He sucked at the cut and swore under his breath.

"Fine," he said to the inert form, "if that's how you're going to be, I'll leave you to it, shall I?" But he recanted immediately, softening. "Ah, I'll just leave the pieces. They were never really part of you, anyway."

_You're talking to a dead man_, said a small if fastidious part of Hatter's mind; but he ignored it. It wasn't worth thinking about, not when he had an unpleasant task in front of him. He bent from the waist, braced his legs, and hooked his hands under March's arms.

The body was heavy; _dead weight_, Hatter's mind added unnecessarily. Hatter grunted a little, face scrunched up from the effort, trying to breathe deeply, evenly. March had always outweighed Hatter, even when they were boys; the taller boy had found it hilarious that it took so long for Hatter to get a growth spurt.

"Well, who's laughing now?" Hatter muttered, teeth gritted as he maneuvered the body towards the door. Which was ridiculous, of course, because just at present, both of them were sober as a tombstone. Just a few more feet and he'd reach the door, and then the dusty sunlight, motes dancing in the shafts, and rubble and destruction. The thought cheered him; anything was preferable to this horrible room, the light reflecting in liquid shocks from the sweat on his brow.

He made the door.

Hatter could be astoundingly practical, when the occasion called for it; he'd brought a barrow. Into this prosaic vehicle he hoisted the body of his once-friend, his more-recently-enemy, March-that-was. He arranged the limbs neatly, then turned away for a moment. Folded his arms. Caught his breath.

Breathing, he reminded himself, was important. It was what separated him from-- well, from other people he could mention.

It didn't do any good to put it off. He settled himself between the handles of the barrow, levered it upwards, began to push. Finding his gaze drifting downwards to the body so close to him, he shook his head, and looked resolutely forward. Trees, fallow ground, the lake in the near distance. He set off, one foot in front of another.

"You remember being kids," he said, rhetorically; he might carry on a conversation with the corpse of Mad March, but he certainly didn't expect it to answer him. "We got along, didn't we? Had each other's back. All those fights we used to get in, just 'cause my grandpa was mad, and your's was--- well. Doesn't matter now, does it? We're not our grandfathers."

Trying to convince himself; he'd never been unable to do it. Even now, talking to a dead man, his tone was uncertain and wary. Five more steps, and he embarked again.

"Remember when you tried to kill me," he said. "Not just this last time, I mean the time before that. What had I done? I don't even remember. You probably wouldn't, either. But it was before you met the Queen, before you joined whatever that secret society was that meant you had to wear black and sneer at everybody. Royal Order of Entitled Jerks, I think it was." His breath huffed out in what may have been a scoff, sarcastic, faintly jeering. "And then you disappeared, and the last I heard of you was. Was." He stopped for a moment. "_You_ are heavy."

Hatter shook his head again, and made himself move on.

"Anyway," he went on, more conversationally this time, starting elsewhere, "that's why I didn't recognize you. Not just the rabbit head, which was weird enough. But--- you're different. Than you used to be. Wasn't-- it wasn't a good change."

He had to stop again, for a different reason this time; tears were burning his eyes, and his breath came painfully. He dropped the handles of the barrow and looked out at the lake, so much closer now; within reach.

"Think what your grandfather would have said," he told the lake, hoping that whatever ghost of March was left, wherever it was lurking, still had ears to hear, and was listening. "If he knew."

This place would do as well as any other. He took the shovel from its place hooked across the handles, and tapped at the ground with the toe of his shoe. Soft enough. Good. He didn't want to work any harder because of March than he already had.

He started digging.

It took all his breath, all his concentration; he had nothing left to say to his former friend, at any rate. Even had March been able to hear him. The hole grew, deeper and deeper, a corpse's footprint on the face of Wonderland. It was growing darker; he was running out of time.

Somewhere out there, he reminded himself, Alice was-- what was she doing? That wasn't the point. Somewhere out there, Alice _was_, and that was all that mattered. He had to get to her, when this obligation was done with. He had to run. He was going to be late.

He dug himself deeper, tunneling, burrowing, like a mole, like a rabbit. At last he stood up, stretched his aching back, swiped at the sweat running into his eyes.

"Mad," he said, to no one in particular; there was no one to hear. "Absolutely mad."

To himself, to March, to their grandfathers, to what they had once had, to the defeated Queen, to Wonderland. _Mad_.

He climbed out of the hole, made for the barrow.

When the business was over, and Mad March was buried, he stood for only a moment over the mounded earth, before shaking his head again. He'd said all he had to say. In the meantime---

In the meantime, he fervently hoped that Alice had waited for him.

He walked to the water's edge, pawing his loosened tie to one side, unbuttoning his shirt, laying the garment on the shore and setting his hat on top of it. Going to his knees by the lake, he dipped his fingers--- dusty, dirty, bloody, exhausted--- into the water.

His reflection hovered just beneath him, looking scruffy and tired and more than a little frightening. He stared at it for a moment, then nodded. Not thinking about this, what he'd just done, seemed like a good idea.

"Right," he said. "Alice it is, then."

He cupped the water in his hands; brought it upwards to wash the dirt and blood from his face; closed his eyes. _Wounded, sire, but not yet dead_. Which reminded him: the Queen was overthrown, and the King was dead. Everyone knew what _that_ meant. Well, perhaps Wonderland would benefit from Jack's rule. Perhaps not. One way or another, they'd find out before long.

In the meantime, he had a celebratory hug to collect.

He stumbled to his feet, snatching his shirt along the way, settling his hat securely, where it belonged.

* * *

The Breath Before The Burn


End file.
